


these quiet nights need turning up

by brightlight



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Established Relationship, M/M, marrieds having fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 00:04:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16922916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightlight/pseuds/brightlight
Summary: “It has to be the biggest party we’ve ever thrown,” Jeonghan had told Soonyoung seriously last month, when they were sitting together a little solemnly thinking about how in two measly months, they’d be fathers. Fathers, with a baby, and constant responsibility. “Bigger than any of our birthdays, bigger than New Years. This is it. This is the last one.”Soonyoung had nodded, looking just as serious. “Like a wake, mourning our lives as fun, sexy, reckless idiots.”





	these quiet nights need turning up

**Author's Note:**

> thank u to my good good pal lianne @s00nhan for the commission to finish this piece i started ages ago!
> 
> this takes place in the same universe as "call me an amenity", a cheolsoo fic (with background soonhan heh) about 4-5 years after the fact (so reading the cheolsoo is not necessary!) 
> 
> (title from "countdown" by amber liu)

“I think it’s perfect,” Soonyoung says, looking up proudly with his hands on his hips at the banner he just hung from their entryway.

It’s for baby announcements, and it originally said “It’s a boy!” but Soonyoung crossed out the word boy and wrote the words “major lifestyle change” above it. Jeonghan sips at his drink and smiles. 

“Of course it’s perfect,” Jeonghan agrees. It’s only seven, and people aren’t going to get there for at least an hour, but Jeonghan’s already sipping at his first drink in preparation. 

 

(“It has to be the biggest party we’ve ever thrown,” Jeonghan had told Soonyoung seriously last month, when they were sitting together a little solemnly thinking about how in two measly months, they’d be fathers. Fathers, with a baby, and constant responsibility. “Bigger than any of our birthdays, bigger than New Years. This is it. This is the last one.” 

Soonyoung had nodded, looking serious. “Like a wake, mourning our lives as fun, sexy, reckless idiots.”

“I’m going to miss it so much,” Jeonghan lamented with a whine. Soonyoung patted him consolingly.)

 

So here they are. Their apartment’s decked with balloons, a few bottles of champagne in ice buckets, a silver tablecloth covering their modest dining room table. The couch is pushed back to the wall, making plenty of room for a makeshift dance floor, and most of their breakable decor is stashed away in closets. Overall, it’s not the most impressive thing in the world, but they bought enough metallic streamers and party decorations to make it look decently put-together. 

They get ready the same way they always have, assembling outfits and styling themselves very seriously, and relying on each other for input. It’s not a surprise when Soonyoung reaches to the back of his closet and pulls out his favorite pair of leather pants, but Jeonghan smiles regardless.

“Their last night out,” Jeonghan says, and Soonyoung turns to him, looking a little offended. “You can’t wear those pants once you have a child, Soonyoungie.”

Soonyoung scoffs. “You said I couldn’t wear them once I had a husband either. You were wrong then, too.”

“You’re a real warrior, huh,” Jeonghan intones, smirking at Soonyoung out of the corner of his eye as he leans into the mirror, looking closely at his skin. He honest to god has a stress pimple forming under his jaw, at age thirty-three. This is what having children does to you, he figures; after all, Seungcheol instantly started getting wrinkles after the twins were born last year. Joshua still looks like the picture of eternal youth, but there are always outliers. Jeonghan tsks at himself in the mirror. 

“You look good,” Soonyoung tells him, sidling up behind him to rest his hands on Jeonghan’s hips.

“You too,” Jeonghan says as he turns around, looking Soonyoung over. “Even if the pants are a little small for you.”

“I’ve been stress-eating,” Soonyoung says with a pout.

“Look at this pimple,” Jeonghan counters, pointing to his chin. 

Soonyoung shakes his head. “We’re falling apart.” 

There’s a moment of seriousness where Jeonghan considers that soon, they might actually be falling apart. Soon, they’ll be tired all the time and probably running around their house with bodily fluids on their clothes. 

“Soonyoung, promise me something,” Jeonghan says, looking at Soonyoung. 

“Anything,” Soonyoung agrees. Jeonghan squints and Soonyoung amends, “Well, most things.” 

“Promise me we’ll always be hot and fun,” Jeonghan says. Soonyoung laughs, but Jeonghan says, “I’m not joking!”

“I know you’re not,” Soonyoung says. “That’s why it’s funny.”

Jeonghan makes an angry noise and slaps weakly at Soonyoung’s chest, clad in a sheer little shirt that Jeonghan usually enjoys very much. But these are dire times, times when he’s more concerned about his real life than Soonyoung’s chest in a sheer shirt.

“We’ll always be hot and fun,” Soonyoung tells him, chuckling again and leaning in to kiss Jeonghan’s forehead. “Always. Babies cannot take that away from us.”

“ _Baby_ , singular,” Jeonghan clarifies. “We are not Seungcheol and Joshua.”

“No, for many reasons, we definitely are not Joshua and Seungcheol.” 

Jeonghan sighs. “I need another drink.”

Soonyoung laughs, but he strokes Jeonghan’s hair. “Hey, you’re alright, right?”

“I’m fine,” Jeonghan tells him, dropping his exasperated little act and giving Soonyoung an appreciative smile. “I promise, I'm good.”

They’ve had enough serious conversations about nerves and fear in the past few months that sometimes, they need to check in with each other. It’s scary, the premise of becoming a parent, and it would be to anyone. But before about a year ago, Jeonghan never really considered it part of his future. He never considered himself good enough, responsible enough, caring enough, or maybe some combination of all of it. 

But Soonyoung did. Soonyoung _does_ consider him all those things, and — well, maybe Jeonghan had always hoped that this would be something he could do someday.

Still. Tonight isn’t about the warm bubbling of happiness Jeonghan feels when he looks at Soonyoung browsing through different strollers and cribs online, the way he feels nervous and excited and trusting, so trusting of how well Soonyoung is going to do.

Tonight is about Soonyoung’s leather pants, about Jeonghan’s ripped jeans and the silky shirt he never gets to wear anymore, about their matching chokers and the seven bottles of champagne sitting in the living room. Well, six and three-quarters. Well, Jeonghan thought, maybe just six and a half, after he pours his next drink. 

Jeonghan puts his hands on Soonyoung’s cheeks and says firmly, “Tonight, we are the hottest and funnest we’ll ever be.”

Soonyoung nods decisively, making his face look funny with the way Jeonghan’s hands are squishing his cheeks, and says, “Tonight, we are the sexiest fathers-to-be in the world.” 

Jeonghan leans in, kisses him, and says, “How drunk do you think I can get before anyone shows up?”

++

Jeonghan finds out that he can get through an entire bottle of champagne before anyone else arrives to his apartment. He, personally, is thrilled to learn this.

“I haven’t lost my edge,” he tells Soonyoung with narrowed eyes. Soonyoung, who’s working his way through his own bottle, giggles at him and leans in to kiss him on the cheek.

By the time Jihoon and Mingyu get there, Jeonghan is already pretty far gone.

“Welcome to our home, start drinking!” Jeonghan shrieks when the door opens.

“You see? I told you it would be like this. I _told_ you, and —” Jihoon is muttering to Mingyu, loud enough to carry.

“Hi, hyungs!” Mingyu chirps happily. “I have a gift.”

“You _are_ a gift,” Soonyoung tells him very sincerely, standing on tippy-toes to embrace Mingyu and kiss him full on the mouth.

“Can you not?” Jihoon asks with narrowed eyes. 

Soonyoung, in response, walks over and kisses him too.

“Soonyoung’s so good,” Jeonghan says in a whining voice 

Mingyu giggles, setting his gift — a large bottle of whiskey — down on the champagne table. 

“I hate this,” Jihoon says blankly. He walks over toward the alcohol table and Jeonghan gets down from his perch on the arm of the couch, walking over to hug him from behind. “I really hate this,” Jihoon says.

“I love you, Jihoonie,” Jeonghan tells him, leaning down to kiss the top of Jihoon’s head.

Their friends filter in over the next hour (Junhui and Wonwoo managing to turn up late, as always, because Wonwoo gets distracted too easily and Junhui has no concept of time), and Soonyoung manages to kiss them all. (Jeonghan’s very proud.) Seungcheol and Joshua look amused by the proceedings, but they also have that look that Jeonghan’s come to recognize as “is this really worth the price of the babysitter?” 

“You need to have fun,” Jeonghan tells Seungcheol with a wide grin.

“You need to get drunk,” Soonyoung clarifies. “That’s what we’re gathered here to do.”

Seungcheol looks at him unimpressed, but Joshua winks from behind his plastic champagne flute (which Jeonghan thought was a classy touch when they bought them.) 

Jeonghan makes the rounds as he sips at his champagne, dropping into about ten different conversations and then pulling himself back out. Seungkwan and Hansol are bickering over something that Jeonghan can’t keep up with (though Hansol has had a good amount of champagne, so maybe it’s not his fault that he can’t follow the argument); Seokmin and Minghao are wrapped up in each other on the sofa, and really, you'd think it was a week since they started dating, not three years; Jihoon is sitting perched in Mingyu’s lap, a clear indication that he’s been drinking since he does not indulge that shit sober; Chan brought his new boyfriend, and Jeonghan, for the sake of old times and his youth, wanted to go over and play intimidating and scary, but Daehwi seems immune to it. 

“And how old are you exactly?” Jeonghan asks with his most cool and intimidating stare, ignoring Chan’s massive eye-roll.

But Daehwi doesn’t miss a beat, smiling at him pleasantly and looking him in the eye confidently. “A lot younger than you, huh?”

Jeonghan narrows his eyes, turning to Chan. “This one’s dangerous.”

Daehwi keeps smiling, leaning on Chan, who rolls his eyes again. “I hate when you do this.”

“You love me, I raised you,” whines Jeonghan, reaching out to pinch at Chan’s cheeks as Chan bats him away. 

Between rotating around his friends, Jeonghan finds Soonyoung. Tries to stay close to his side, until they both get distracted and pulled apart. Keeps his eyes trailing Soonyoung’s body in his clothes, the way he smiles big and sweet when he drinks, the way he keeps dancing to the loud music they have playing on their nice speakers. Tonight’s about their friends, about celebration, but Jeonghan thinks that mostly it’s about them. Them celebrating the way they like to — celebrating each other, celebrating the way they are together, and the life they’ve made. It’s silly, associating sloppy drunk nights laughing with each other with the foundation of their relationship, but, well. It is, a little bit, for Jeonghan. They’re something built on knowing how to have fun together, and this is _fun_ , Jeonghan thinks as he dances messily with Soonyoung in their cleared out living room.

Jeonghan and Soonyoung have gotten through three and a half bottles of champagne between them by the time Seokmin turns on the karaoke machine, and that’s when things really start getting fuzzy for Jeonghan. He remembers duetting with Joshua, and then again with Jihoon; he remembers laughing uproariously at the number Soonyoung, Seokmin, and Seungkwan perform together. He remembers someone singing a lot of S.E.S, with included choreography — probably Chan, Jeonghan thinks. He has flashes of some vivid memories, one of them being when he suggested body shots and...did a shot out of Joshua’s navel? Then Jeonghan ended up on the table instead of Joshua and Soonyoung was there with him, and they ended up kissing. 

Most things are kind of dim after that. And when he wakes up the next morning, he realizes why. 

_Oh my god_ , he thinks to himself as he regains something sort of like consciousness. _Oh my god, I’m_ college _hungover._

Everything hurts. Not just hangover things, like his head — _everything_. His neck and back, his limbs as he moves them to prop himself up and get his bearings. As he moves his head, he becomes incredibly dizzy, and feels nausea wash over him. Jesus christ. He really did it this time. 

Jeonghan looks around, squinting even in the very dim light filtering through the — living room curtains? What? He slowly takes in his surroundings and realizes he’s on the couch, half-covered with a blanket, his shirt off and his jeans unbuttoned. Okay. Sure. 

Soonyoung is nowhere to be found, and Jeonghan knows that’s a mystery he needs to solve, but he thinks if he moves he’ll actually die. Like real-life die, and that’s not an option, he thinks as he pictures Soonyoung trying to be a single father. A single father haunted by Jeonghan’s sexy, beautiful ghost. No, that won’t do. So he lies back down slowly, hoping that maybe if he lies completely still, the hangover will think he’s dead and leave him alone.

It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work _and_ he needs to pee, so he pries himself up off the couch slowly, ignoring the pops and cracks his bones make as he goes. God, this is _depressing_ , he thinks. Being old is a nightmare. He trudges down the hallway, looking around for some sign of Soonyoung, and he finds one as he passes the kitchen.

Soonyoung is lying between the kitchen island and the fridge, face slack with sleep, in a full Donald Duck look — mesh shirt on, all bottoms off. 

Jeonghan blinks. “Okay,” he mutters, then continues to the bathroom. That problem will need to wait at least two minutes, until he pees, washes his face, and takes a good hard look at himself. Jeonghan really, really doesn’t like what he sees. His stress pimple has grown a new friend, and his eyebags are _enormous_. He looks like Seungcheol the week after they got the twins, but his baby isn’t even _here_ yet. Is this what his future looks like?

He does all twelve steps of his skincare routine (ignoring the nausea that hits him as he leans over the sink), trying fervently to maintain the youth he feels slipping away from him with every dizzying turn of his old hungover brain. 

“Soonyoung-ah,” he nearly yells as he steps back into the kitchen, face smooth and shiny. “Wake up.”

Soonyoung startles cartoonishly, and it’s a testament to Jeonghan’s hangover that he can’t even manage a smile as Soonyoung clutches his chest, looking around.

“Why am I on the floor?” Soonyoung asks, staring up at Jeonghan with a confused expression. Then he looks down at himself, and back up at Jeonghan. “And why is my dick out?”

“You’re asking the complete wrong person,” Jeonghan says, shaking his head and then wincing at the feeling.

Soonyoung gives him a baffled expression. “Who else would I be getting my dick out for?”

“Your nudity is usually not at my request,” Jeonghan points out. “You take your clothes off for almost anything.”

Soonyoung looks like he’s thinking. “You have a point.” 

“Hey, anyway, I’m fucking dying,” Jeonghan tells him. 

“Oh yeah, completely. Completely dying. What the fuck happened last night?” Soonyoung asks. He peels himself off of the smooth kitchen floor, wincing as he stands, and steps forward to lean against Jeonghan.

“Well, we accomplished what we set out to do, anyway. I think I’m good on drinking for the next year or so,” Jeonghan tells him, reaching to pet Soonyoung’s hair.

Soonyoung sighs. “I need to put pants on.”

“Yeah, I need a shirt, too,” Jeonghan says, patting him on the head again. They split apart and lumber wearily to their bedroom, looking relatively pristine, and honestly, Jeonghan’s a little grateful for that. Of all the messes they need to clean today, he didn’t need another one.

They’re about five minutes into ridding themselves of their uncomfortable clothes and putting pajamas on instead (it’s only ten AM, after all) when Soonyoung turns to Jeonghan and asks, “So, what do you think happened?”

Is it responsible to have a game they play the day after particularly inadvisable parties? No, but it’s a fun way to piece together all their bad decisions, and they haven’t really had a chance to play since college. Only one other time, at Joshua and Seungcheol’s wedding a few years ago.

Jeonghan turns to Soonyoung with a smile. He considers. “I think we probably tried to fuck on the kitchen floor.”

Soonyoung hums, thinking. “That does sound familiar. I did some body shots off you? I do remember some kitchen floor stuff after that.”

“Good thing we cleaned,” Jeonghan says with a shrug. “Judging from our clothes this morning though, I think I got as far as taking your pants off before realizing it was a commitment I couldn’t make.”

“Ha, so it is your fault I was naked. And you tried to blame me," Soonyoung says with a laugh.

"We still have no way of knowing whose fault it is that you were naked," Jeonghan reminds him.

"Anyway you left me there, naked and probably confused --"

"There was nothing confusing about the situation, I'm sure --"

"And then you passed out on the couch,” Soonyoung finishes. There is a small pleasure in the detective work, and the two of them high-five to celebrate it.

Jeonghan sits down next to Soonyoung on the edge of the bed, resting a hand on Soonyoung’s sweatpant-clad knee. 

“Hey,” he starts. “Everything’s gonna change, huh?”

He shouldn’t be in his feelings over trying to piece together a drunken night with Soonyoung, but...the hangover made him sensitive, okay?

Soonyoung looks at him and puts his hand over Jeonghan’s. There’s a small smile on his face as he squeezes. “Yeah. Everything’s gonna change.”

“It’s gonna be good, though. It’s gonna be really good, I think,” Jeonghan goes on, voice quiet, smile hopeful. “I’m excited.”

“I’m excited to do everything with you,” Soonyoung agrees. His face is all squishy and cute and Jeonghan wants to squeeze his cheeks. He wishes their baby could have Soonyoung’s cheeks.

“You think we’ll miss this stuff?” Jeonghan asks.

“Probably,” Soonyoung says with a nod. “But I don’t know that we’ll miss it in a way where we want it back, you know?”

Jeonghan nods at him. “Yeah,” he agrees quietly. 

In two months, they’ll have a real live baby to take care of and _parent_ , honest-to-god _parent_ , and that’s surreal. No matter how much planning, how much work went into getting a baby, no matter how many long conversations they’ve had about it in the last year and a half. It’s surreal, to think of them as something so grown-up, so...responsible. There’s fear at the edges of Jeonghan’s mind, sure, but mostly there’s happiness. Excitement.

“When you fucked me at a college party ten years ago, did you think we’d have a baby together?” Soonyoung asks Jeonghan with a smirk.

Jeonghan snorts. “I didn’t even think I’d ever see you again.”

“Yet here I am,” Soonyoung says, smiling teasingly. “Persistent.” 

Jeonghan laughs, shaking his head, and then he groans at the feeling. Soonyoung coos sympathetically at him.

“Come on, Hannie-hyung, let’s go clean up and take some medicine,” Soonyoung says, stroking a hand on Jeonghan’s cheek. “Wow, your face is soft.”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan sighs as he stands. “I exfoliated today because I had a three-minute crisis about aging.”

“Your mind is incredible,” Soonyoung tells him.

They walk down the hallway together, hand-in-hand, and when Jeonghan looks at Soonyoung in the middle of cleaning up sticky spills from their nice floors, he sees their future. And he feels good about it.

**Author's Note:**

> i can be found @idlemoonlight on twitter and curious cat. thanks for reading!


End file.
